


Reverie

by qaffangyrl



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: M/M, Part Angsty Part Schmoopy if that's possible, Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Pre-Captain America: The First Avenger, This is what I'm thinking about while I'm waiting for Black Panther and Infinity War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-14
Updated: 2018-02-14
Packaged: 2019-03-18 05:17:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,962
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13675017
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/qaffangyrl/pseuds/qaffangyrl
Summary: Bucky is still in his head. In that dream. The first time he’s slept without having a nightmare that he can remember.





	Reverie

**Author's Note:**

> This was in my head. Hope you like it.

The memories have been coming back in a steady stream for the past two years. Bucky sees every face, every drop of blood, every last gasp of desperate breath that he has stolen from dozens of people over endless decades. Some had it coming, sure. But, that doesn’t help him sleep at night. Collateral damage. That’s what Pierce, and the Soviet handlers from before Hydra had got their hands back on Bucky, would have called it. An unfortunate, but necessary evil. Evil. Bucky has come to terms with what he’s become. He’s laid low, squatting in old Iron Curtain safe houses, vowing to keep his nose clean now that the global intelligence community was in disarray. If only he didn’t have a constant tail. A paratrooper of sorts. A hero. A good man who helped his own, from what Bucky had been able to discern from the personnel files he’d procured. He’d had Steve’s back. That was good. Rogers needed right hand man. Always had. Always will. 

But now, after the Vienna attack and a bevy of surreal, special forces specialists led by Stark’s kid, Bucky finds himself sitting in an aircraft that looks like something out of a one of those Saturday morning space fantasy serials Steve used to drag him to when they were kids. Bucky is with Steve- the man who’d always meant more to Bucky than words could possibly describe. And that’s what makes it terrible. Bucky doesn’t deserve joy and comfort. He definitely had lost any right to call this man his friend. 

His throat is as raw, but he manages to rasp out, “Maybe the King should turn me in to the U.N.. they might not come for you if they have me.” 

“Out of the question, Buck.” Steve’s resolute. His tone would have made Bucky roll his eyes if he had the ability to make dramatic expressions anymore. “T’Challa is giving us sanctuary. We’re taking it. No discussion.” 

Bucky is silent. His memories of Brooklyn and the War with Steve were spotty. The journaling had helped. And he could remember how Steve used to sound when he was wracked with pain and trying to cover. Cocksure. It was annoying. Bucky nearly smiles to himself when he remembers that. But Steve’s taken one hell of a beating and Bucky doesn’t know how well that serum has held up after all these years. He wants to help. Administer first aid. He has an urge to dote over Steve. It confuses him. He shakes the feeling away. Chalks it up to exhaustion. Bucky falls asleep. 

In his dream he can feel a draft. It’s fall. The air is cool and wet. He smells newspapers, the Brooklyn Sugar Refinery and Mrs. Renetti’s baked ziti wafting up from the basement apartment below. The spring foam bed creaks as a small form curls up against Bucky’s side. Steve. Want. Need. Bucky indulges, burrowing his nose along the bend of Steve’s neck while peppering kisses along a bird-thin collar bone. A hungry whine escapes Steve’s lips. Permission. Bucky keeps going. He makes quick work of shedding his thin, cotton shorts and presses himself into the hollow of Steve’s belly and then further below. Bucky’s hands find Steve’s. Together, they reach under the threadbare blanket and begin working each other to the brink. Bucky wants to slow down. Savor it. But he can tell Steve is racing for release. The punk never does anything half way. Always full steam ahead. They don’t talk. In fact, they don’t ever say a word when this happens. Not before or after either. Bucky’s ashamed. He doesn’t want this for Steve. Gotta find him a girl. That’s what Bucky thinks about as he’s getting his best friend off. Then we can quit this. Bucky knows himself. He’s the kind of queer that can pass. The kind that can get married have a family and when it gets too hard to bare, he can go down one of those particular alleys that everyone knows about, but of which no one ever speaks. It’ll be enough. As long as he can make sure Steve is happy. That’s all that matters. That’s all that has ever mattered. 

The remote Wakandan palace is, in a word, stunning. Not that Bucky has paid any attention to his surroundings. He’s missed all of it. The pageantry announcing the new King’s arrival. The succulent greenery and exotic wildlife. Bucky is still in his head. In that dream. The first time he’s slept without having a nightmare that he can remember. He’s come in his pants. Not that it had mattered, he was already filthy and wet from the fight with Stark and the snowy trudge back to the quinjet. 

Sex. Sex with Steve. As the Wakandan medics and technicians tend to his wounds and what’s left of his prosthetic Bucky tries to recall the last time he has had sex. There were women in Russia. At that school. He was part of their training. They were practicing how to seduce a mark. He remembers overhearing them giggle about his resolve. Does he have a sweetheart the girls had wondered. Why is he able to resist us, so? Did he? Was Steve? No. It had to have been just a dream. 

He catches Steve’s eye from across the room. He’s patched up. No worse for wear at first glance. Then Bucky sees it. He sees how obviously sad Steve is. He remembers that look. Loss and the weight of the world on his shoulders. It’s just how Steve looked after his mother’s funeral. Bucky can’t imagine how much all of this has cost Steve. He gave up everything. He had turned his back on his team for Bucky. And now Steve’s life is ruined. He’s a fugitive, a criminal. Those are the last two words Bucky would have ever imagined would describe the man who literally knocked on Hydra’s door and blasted it and the rest of the Nazis all to hell. 

The infirmary clears out and he and Steve are left alone. Machines quietly monitor them both from a wireless distance. They’re both dressed in white pajamas. Steve sits up in his bed grabs the soft grey robe that’s draped on the metallic footboard. “Could ‘ya use some compn’y” Steve asks. A hint of his old Brooklyn accent sneaks in the question.

“S’long as you’re not contagious or sum’thin” A voice Bucky doesn’t recognize as his own replies. Steve crosses the room and takes a seat in a luxuriously cushioned chair next to Bucky’s bed. Not the type of furniture one expects to find in a medical ward. 

“You were out for the count on the ride here. I was worried you’d slipped into a coma for a while, there.” A crease in Steve’s forehead formed. His eyebrows drawn together. He looked old. Worn out.  
“Naw. I’m fine. Nothing some vibranium alloy can’t fix.” Bucky gestured with the stump of his left arm. “The nurse said a team is already working on some schematics.” 

“She's a doctor. And she’s T’Challa’s sister, you know.” 

“No shit?” 

A small chuckle escape Steve’s lips. “Women can be doctors, Buck. Just like in our time. They can be all sorts of things these days. The future does have some perks.” 

“Sure.” Bucky agrees. His light tone belies the dull ache that thrums through his body. “But she’s a doctor and a princess. Not every day two jerks from Red Hook get tended to by a princess.” 

Steve shrugs. “Fair point. You got me there. A week ago, if anyone had told me I’d be sitting in Africa with my best friend getting stitched up by royalty I’d have never believed it.” 

Bucky freezes. His body seems to be a few beats ahead of his mind. When his head is able to catch up he asks, “Is that what we were? Best friends?” He immediately regrets his choice of words when he sees the stricken look on Steve’s face. 

“We ARE best friends, Buck. Nothing can change that. I told you before. Those things you did—”  
Bucky cuts him off. “That’s not what I meant. I still struggle sometimes with words. With memories. The psychotronics, the wipes and the cryochamber—” 

“God, I’m so sorry Buck I wasn’t suggesting—”

“— I know.” Bucky tries to sound reassuring. But that dream. It’s still nagging at him. “But you say we were friends. That’s what you told me on the helicarrier, too.” 

“Yes.” 

Bucky shifts in the bed, his balance is still off but he manages to face Steve directly. “There’s stuff in my head. Memories. Maybe. But, I’m not sure if they’re real.” Bucky searches Steve’s face, hoping he’ll fill in some gaps without his having to ask. No luck there. “On the ride here. I think I remembered. Brooklyn. Did our apartment smell like marinara and sugar?” 

“And freshly printed newspapers from the stand at the corner! Yes. All the time.” Steve smiles. He smiles a real honest to god happy smile. 

In unison they confirm, “Mrs. Renetti’s baked ziti” Laughter rolls through Bucky’s body. It felt so strange. He wonders how many decades it had been since he’s laughed. The levity gives him courage. 

“The apartment we shared, I moved in to your place after—” 

“Yeah” 

“It was small.” 

“Too small for two grown men” Steve notes. 

“I remember being happy there.” Bucky says in nearly a whisper. 

“Me too. I was happy there with you.” Steve says, he’s not looking at Bucky though. He’s worrying the belt from his robe in his fingers. 

“Steve. Were we—” 

“Yes.” Steve’s blue eyes are on Bucky now. Scared. Hopeful? 

“Why didn’t you say anything before now?” Bucky digs a finger into a cut on his thigh. It distracts him from the wave of emotion he is not equipped at all to handle.

“What could I say? We never talked about it. Ever. You’d come home three sheets to the wind. I could always smell the perfume from whichever good-time girl you’d danced with all night. Things—things would start up and I was never sure if you even knew it was me that you were—”  
“—surely the mornings after we’d—” 

“No. Bucky. It was always business as usual. I always felt so guilty.” 

“I’m sorry.” 

“No, I felt guilty because you were so drunk I felt like I had taken advantage. And I’d never—”

“I know. Me either. You have to know that.” 

“I do.” 

Silence. 

Bucky tries to make sense of the fits and starts that had been this sort-of conversation. It was real. What had happened between him and Steve in their perfect little place in Brooklyn had been real. But what had it meant? “It wasn’t sex.” 

“Well….” 

“I was making love to you.” There. Bucky has said it. They can come for him. He will go without a fight. He’s told the full truth for this first time in his life. 

“Oh.”  
“It’s okay. I know that you’re not—” 

“— I am. With you. I am. I do. It’s always been you Buck. Always.” Steve reaches up to brush Bucky’s hair out of his eyes. Bucky pulls away. 

“We can’t.” 

“I didn’t mean to—” Steve draws back. Hurt. Bucky takes Steve’s hand rests his cheek in Steve’s touch.

“I gotta get right, first. If I can. Hydra’s still in my head. I can’t risk hurting you again. I won’t.” 

Steve nods. “Well, we’re safe here. And by the looks of things we’re in the best medical hands on the planet.” 

“You’ll wait for me?” 

“You know it, pal. If it takes until the twenty second century. I’m not going anywhere.” 

That night, Bucky gets the first good night’s sleep he’s had in over seventy years. 

The end. Maybe.


End file.
